Got sick of my own whining, so

[tahariel]

Decided freaking out about my writing by myself was not really very helpful or productive, so I'm going to post the project I'm currently working on here, and I'd really appreciate it if people could take the time to read it and give me a little feedback? Any level of response is fine, just need some reassurance that it's not total pants.

ETA 13/7/10: now updated with additional crazy!



This Mortal Armour

It was quiet on the way down from the Fortress, but probably all the men had already gone down into town for the rest day. Stranger, though, that nobody should be about. Far off in the distance, behind the hill, smoke rose in wisps and feather-edged gouts of black, some hidden bonfire of blackened boughs and dry leaves coiling up to vanish in puffs of soot. He could smell it on the wind as he stood watching the clouds floating out towards the pass. Felix had always thought that the sunlight in Bonnea was oddly glossy, a strangely golden edge to it that didn’t illuminate all corners but seemed like it did. Something about the sky, perhaps, or the local stone that the houses were built of, reflecting light back at him, shone rounded from the smooth cobbles as he walked down into town.

It wasn’t until he reached the marketplace that he heard the shouting start, pottery smash, and felt his shoulders slump in a sigh. So that was where everyone was. Some started pushing back down the street towards him to get away, but more people seemed inclined to stand and watch whatever was going on, the square filled to the brim with stalls and squalling children and braying animals.

He paused to pinch the strong line of his nose between his fingers, squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation, then worked his way forward to the mouth of the square and started pushing people out of the way a little less than carefully, working his way towards the noise. Some of them turned around, annoyed, when he put his hand on their backs, but quickly stepped aside when they saw who it was. “Felix is here,” someone said, and people began to move, elbowing each other aside to make a path for his broad shoulders and disgruntled expression. All save the bloody lot in the middle of the bloody crowd, who were too focussed on hitting anything and anyone they could reach, howling and rolling around on the ground amid the broken jugs of ale like a pack of dogs.

“Blood and corruption,” Felix muttered under his breath, and started hauling lads away from one another, wrapping his fingers tight around whatever he could reach without regard for propriety before tossing them away from the fight and into the widening space between them and the crowd. Flesh smacked against cobbles, and the lads groaned, grunted, swore, air driven out of their lungs. Felix was fairly certain he’d been drilling some of these lads on the training ground only yesterday. Elbows caught him in the ribs, one in the ear, jostling him this way and that, a problem of balance rather than of pain; feet and fists glanced off him as he waded deeper, bounced painlessly from his impervious skin, but he could hear it when his shirt ripped at the shoulder where one of them grabbed him, pulling down the sleeve until it gathered at his elbow in a tangle of loose fabric.

“I liked this shirt,” he muttered to himself, and with a huff of irritation hauled on the hand of the kid that grabbed him to bring the lad’s face in contact with his other fist, smacking him between the eyes hard enough to get him to let go, give up and lie down. “Hey! Break it up!” The fighters started to back off as he reached the middle of the fight, shoving them all away from the heart of the brawl to reveal its focus.

A scrawny lad faced off, if you could call it that, against the miller’s son. Roger had to be twice the boy’s size, and with a pint or two put away already, if Felix were any judge. He would have said nothing could upset a lad like Roger, salt-of-the-earth type, tipsy or no, but here he was, creating a public spectacle of himself, rips all over his market-day best that’d get him a hiding from his father. The other one, the kid, had the nobility’s self-important superiority written all over him, chin up and a righteous expression on his face, half his glossy chestnut hair pulled rough out of its tie, fine white linen shirt in shreds and shiny leather boots now scuffed right up to his knees. He’d probably be handsome if it weren’t for the sneer and the fact he was built like a shoelace.

“What’s this about then, lads?” Felix asked when they’d managed to clamber to their feet, still glaring at one another, and both turned to look at him, chagrin on Roger’s face and affront on the kid’s.

“His Lordship here couldn’t keep a civil tongue in his mouth long enough to ask directions,” Roger said, glancing back at the kid with a scowl. “I was just telling him how we like to keep things polite in Bonnea, sir.”

“It would be nice if you could manage two things at once and keep things clean, too,” the kid said, long, city-bred drawl, beating dust from his breeches, “But I suppose you had to pick one or the other.”

“You - ” A hand on Roger’s shoulder stopped him from punching the kid, but only just. “No need for that, lad,” Felix said sternly, fixing his eyes solidly on the kid’s face instead of looking at the soldiers crawling achingly away, hoping he hadn’t seen them. The lad had the strangest tip-tilted green eyes, narrowed right now in anger. “It may not be as fine here as in the city, but that doesn’t mean you can talk to people like that.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, intending to lead him away from the crowd, somewhere he could give him a stern talking-to, when the kid snapped, “Who the bloody stones do you think you are? Don’t you put your hands on me!” and hit him.

To be fair, he threw a good punch, and it crunched against Felix’s cheekbone in a way that had to hurt. Felix almost felt sorry for the lad when he pulled his hand back and yowled, but mostly he was too busy grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, holding him up to his tiptoes so that he wobbled dangerously against the support of his hand and shaking him a little to regain his attention. “Bad idea, lad,” he said, and shot Roger a sharp look to quell his snigger. “Have you a civil bone in your body, or am I going to have to drag you to the stocks?”

“Put me down!” The boy struggled hard against his grip, kicking and scratching, but succeeded only in tearing his nails and stubbing his toes painfully against Felix’s shins, and if anything the crowd had only grown bigger instead of dispersing. “Va’anya’s tits, is your face made out of rocks? You’ll be sorry soon enough, I promise you.”

“My name is Felix Ironskin, the Master of Swords,” Felix said calmly, and smiled, just a little, at the look on the kid’s face. “Who are you?”

“Bloody stones,” the kid muttered, “just my bloody luck,” before raising his voice to say, “My name is Landon Harrier, the newest of the Great Mages, Master of Illusion!” His announcement was proclaimed in a grand voice, as though it was meant to impress the townspeople after all of his ridiculous goings-on. It would have matched better a sweeping bow, but caught the way he was, the kid evidently thought to regain a little dramatic flair for himself.

With Felix’s hand still clamped firmly around his nape, the boy suddenly was not there. The crowd gasped, astonished, and even Felix felt his eyebrows rise, but stopped himself in time before he could gape. He’d thought he’d left all the posturing and dramatics behind at court, but clearly not. There was still a pressure against his palm, still hair brushing against his fingers, so he scowled instead and shook the boy he could not see harder than the time before, gaining himself only curses and a suddenly re-visible, teenage Great Mage.

“Guess I’d better take you up to the Fort,” he said, and with his free hand pinched the bridge of his nose, hard.

~~~

After he dropped the kid off with Nicholas, Felix went off for swordpractice with the garrison and didn’t see him again until evening. He wouldn’t have seen him then, either, if it weren’t for the fact that Nicholas insisted they have some sort of welcome dinner - normally he ate with the men, and preferred the company. Nicholas wasn’t a bad sort, but Felix had been raised by guardsmen and eating mess-hall food. They might have taught him which fork was which since, but he still didn’t care how his napkin was folded.

The kid lifted his chin unashamedly when Felix came in, expression smooth and arrogant, dressed smartly in fresh doublet and breeches and with his hair tied back neatly once more, but he had a nice black eye coming up in a shade of deep purple with a split in his eyebrow to go with it where the skin was an angry red. Someone had strapped up his left hand, binding cotton between his fingers to separate them and a length of bandage wound tight around his palm down to his wrist. It looked a little out of place in Nicholas’s smart receiving room, hung with the tasteful tapestries his daughters had made for him and decorated in the most fashionable style by the same hands. Personally, he didn’t care for the pale, washed-out colours and uncomfortable, spindly furniture, but to each his own. He preferred the heavy, brass-bound frame of the tall mirror that stood in the corner, despite the faint gleam of movement that plagued its glass even when not in use, and the occasional whisper of people who weren’t in the room.

Felix nodded to him politely and earned a haughty nod in return, as though he hadn’t first met the lad when he was face-down in the dirt in the middle of a brawl having mud rubbed in his face.

“Good evening,” the kid said stiffly, looking back down at the book cradled in his lap not a beat sooner than would have been rude.

“How’s the hand?” Ignoring propriety, Felix stepped forward to take hold of it, pulling it up out of the kid’s lap and rolling the knuckles between his fingers to see how they moved. They felt about right, a little swollen perhaps but not sunken or broken.

“It’s fine,” the kid said in a strangled voice, flushed and staring wide-eyed at Felix’s offending hand, larger than his own, then tugged it out of his grip with a jerk, pulling it in protectively to his chest. It must still hurt.

“A bit swollen, then,” Felix said. “Can you move your fingers normally?”

The door opened and closed behind him, and, distracted, he half-turned before the kid could reply. The Fortress’s Master was smiling genially and spreading his hands wide in front of him, overeffusive as ever. “Felix!” Nicholas grasped his elbow firmly, as though they didn’t see each other every day. He liked Nicholas very much, but one day the man would have to learn to be easy with his position. Silver had started to pepper his dark hair of late, his stocky build easing into middle-aged spread and crowsfeet gathering at the corners of his eyes. His voice was still smooth, though, when he spoke, not yet made hoarse by time. “Landon was telling me about how you extricated him from a difficult situation this morning.”

“Land - oh, the kid.” Felix shrugged, trying not to scowl. “You could call it that.”

“Don’t call me a kid,” the kid snapped, obviously recovered from his wordless dumbfoundment with Felix, fairly leaping to his feet, fists flinching open with a little wince he tried to cover with a sneer. “I’m seventeen years old, and I said that he had hauled me around by the scruff of the neck like a naughty kitten, not that I in any way, shape or form needed his help!”

Nicholas just laughed, and gestured towards his dining room, placing a guiding hand on the kid’s back and nudging him in the right direction. “I imagine you kept the Court on their toes, my boy! Come now, have something to eat and forgive Felix for being so reliable. We need to discuss what you are to do here with us for the next year.”

“A year?” Indignant, his mouth an ‘o’ of outrage. “They’ve sent me out into the untamed wilderness for a year?”

“Hardly untamed,” Nicholas said as Felix followed them through the door, and this time his tone was a little reproof, delicate in its polite disapproval. “Have the salmon, it’s my favourite.”

The dining room was done up in the same delicate, ephemeral style, not at all suitable for an outpost fortress. The paintings were nice enough, but nothing to the view from the window - two miles to the north, past gold-limned fields and the long gravelled line of the road, the evening’s orange sun was creeping down behind the high granite walls of the pass, the deep shadows they cast leaning in towards one another as though trying to touch.

“Is that Death’s Door?” the kid asked, coming up beside Felix to stand at the window looking outwards into the gathering twilight at the ragged stone. “Va’anya, it’s massive!”

“And beyond it, Silene,” Felix said, and turned away from the window.

The kid stayed looking out, shifted his attention down to the town below them and scowled, eyebrows drawing together into steep curves. “Somewhere down there is my horse, my packhorse, and with them my saddlebags,” he said, tapping the fingers of his good hand against the windowledge. “I hadn’t the opportunity to look for them before you dragged me up here by my ear, not that I’m not sure my possessions are scattered amongst the populace now, being admired for their fine taste and quality.”

“You’ll have them tomorrow.” Felix had impressed upon the innkeeper before they’d left for the Fortress just how pleased he would be when whoever had taken the lad’s goods ‘for safekeeping’ brought them back the next day, with everything in its right place, just the way he had left it.

“I doubt it. Seriously, this is a frontier town, this is the backwoods of the backwoods of nowhere. They’re probably all exiles from the cities who’ve come here to start new lives with new identities, away from centralised rule of law.” The kid didn’t even look at the servant who stepped forward to pull his chair out for him when he came over to the table; the man behind Felix knew not to even bother trying any more. “They have pigs here. I saw them! Pigs! And cows!”

“What about them?” Felix asked, seating himself and picking up his knife and fork.

“Pigs, and cows!” the kid said again. “In the town. Last time I checked, those were people houses down there. Pigs and cows do not live in houses, therefore why are they in the town? Do people marry them out here? It would explain both the size and manners of my entirely unprovoked attackers. Or do they keep them as pets?”

“Wasn’t it market day today, Felix?” Nicholas asked, smiling a little, and gestured for the servants to put their dinners on the table. “Local farmers bring their livestock in to sell, Landon. I’m sure they do so in the city, too.”

The kid muttered something to his plate that sounded something like “Also they were very badly dressed,” and then Felix had to cut up his dinner for him because of his broken hand, the kid complaining all the while about how much it hurt and how it was really very inconsiderate of him to have let the kid hit him when he had a brick wall for a face.

“Taught you something, didn’t it?” was all Felix said, which earned him another scowl.

“In fact,” said Nicholas smoothly, laying out his napkin neatly across his lap and smiling serenely, “I was going to suggest that you taught him at least half of the time, Felix. I can hardly keep him occupied all day by myself, and you two are rather closer in age. I’m sure you will become great friends and colleagues.”

“What,” the kid said bluntly, which was very much how Felix felt, shooting Nicholas an incredulous look.

“Don’t look at me like that, you two.” Nicholas’s spirits seemed not to have been affected at all by their reaction, nor his appetite; he speared a large flake of fish and popped it into his mouth, smiling all the while. “Honestly, you would think I’d assigned you to Night Watch in the Bone Garden.”

“I know nothing about teaching.” Felix ran a hand back through his short hair, ruffling it between his fingers distractedly. “Besides, I spend all day with a sword. What’s the kid to do, bring me water between rounds? Hardly a good use of his time.”

“Now that is patently untrue,” Nicholas said over the kid’s indignant noises, waving his fork at Felix, tines shining with oil. “You perform many duties of great importance to this Fortress, Felix, and you know it. Stop making excuses to avoid having to talk any more than is minimally necessary and do as I ask, please.”

Felix looked across the table at the kid, who was looking back at him dubiously and making no attempt to hide it. All in all, Felix really would have been much happier in the messhall.

~~~

Officially, the Kid was there to learn about the running of a fortress, the responsibilities of a Great Mage in the field, and the way people lived outside of the cities and towns of central Va’andosa. Unofficially, he was there to learn some respect and responsibility towards people other than himself. The Servant in Va’andosa, having finished his magical training, hoped that having Death’s Door looming over him every day might impress upon him the seriousness of the threats his nation laboured under. It hadn’t been ten years yet since the last time Silene had attempted to come through the pass in force. Not long enough for people here to forget, with their sons and husbands and fathers gone to the Garden over the hilltops, even if those in the cities had.

So Felix drilled the soldiers in the mornings and sparred with the knights in the afternoons when the shadows grew long over the sand of the training field, long smooth movements of his arm the way his Da had taught him, and ignored the town’s teenagers sitting idle on the steps watching their swords spark off one another, calling out to alternate between encouragements and heckling. As a result he didn’t notice when the Kid turned up until that city drawl started joining in, so it wasn’t until he had finished the bout that he allowed himself to look over. And blood and corruption if the Kid wasn’t holding court right there on the steps, girls hanging from his arms and laughing at his every utterance.

“Of course, not everything you hear about Great Mages is true,” the Kid said in languid reply to a question directed his way by one of the town boys, who was looking dubiously impressed, if the way he was leaning closer and closer to the Kid was any indication.

“Then you’re not ten times stronger than a regular Mage?” a brunette asked, and they all giggled when he said, “Of course not. It depends on the Mage - after all, some barely have any magic at all! Great Mages are on a completely different level to normal Mages. Why else would we all end up in service to the Crown? We’re too important not to. You wouldn’t ride a mouse into battle if you had a warhorse. The King told me he has high hopes for my future.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Take a break,” he told the knights, who nodded respectfully, before heading over to the railing that separated off the fighters from the spectators. “Kid. A word.”

“I don’t answer to that name, I’m afraid,” the Kid answered dryly, his hangers-on tittering, albeit between nervous glances at the sword in Felix’s hand. They knew him well enough to mind him, even if the Kid was too full of himself.

“Get down here, or I’ll come up there,” Felix said, calmly enough, and put a hand on his shoulder while he rolled it to help loosen up the muscle.

With a theatrical sigh, the Kid got to his feet and fairly strolled down the steps, thumbs tucked into his belt. He looked sleek and groomed today, dressed for court with sunshine gleaming from his hair, the bruise either faded or hidden from around his eye though his hand was still lightly bound with crisp white linen. “What is it?” he asked, insouciant, when he got to the railing, and leant upon it on folded arms, loose-limbed and self-important. “Don’t you have men’s heads to be beating in, or something? I’m not a kid, by the way. I told you, I’m seventeen years old.”

“Don’t you have lessons with Nicholas, or something?” Felix mimicked, raising an eyebrow. “Instead of entertaining the masses?”

“I have lessons with you, or something, but you seemed to be busy, so I thought I’d wait.” The Kid shrugged, smirking up at Felix through his eyelashes. “Why, am I making you uncomfortable?”

Felix looked down at him for a long moment, then snorted and turned back to his practice, gesturing for the next man to come stand ready. The Kid had balls, if nothing else. Felix had to be three times his size. “I’ll be another hour at least,” he called back over his shoulder. “Do what you like until then.” He heard the crunch of gravel underfoot, and then the creak of wood as the Kid went back up the steps to his little coterie of admirers.

“You might not want to piss him off,” Felix heard one of the lads say as he took up his ready stance, watching his opponent’s torso for the first signs of movement. “He’s totally damageproof. You upset him, and there’s no way to stop him pounding you into mush and eating you.”

“Not that he would,” one of the girls sighed, her voice a little dreamy, and if the Kid hadn’t made him uncomfortable, that did. “He’s a real gentleman.”

“Ready?” Felix asked the other man, and the clash of swords drowned out whatever the Kid might have said in response to that.

It was a good bout; Owen’s reflexes were improving, and so he deflected more of Felix’s blows than before, metal singing out as it sliced through the air. He liked to let the men use real blades when practicing with him, get used to the way they moved, subtly different to the blunt-edged dummies they used with each other. His training clothes were old and comfortable, darned and patched where they’d been caught by sharp edges. Nonetheless, when he judged it long enough he disarmed Owen handily enough, snagging his blade at the crossguard and flipping it away into the sand before placing the tip of his sword at the hollow of the man’s throat, a tremble of swallowing beneath the point. “Good,” he said, and lowered his blade, rolling his head from side to side to loosen up his neck. “Watch yourself, you’re still leaving yourself open on the left side some of the time.”

“Yes, sir.” The other man mopped his forehead on his sleeve, hair lank with sweat, and gave a small, respectful bow.

“None of that,” Felix said gruffly, and batted lazily at Owen with the flat of his sword. He looked at the men waiting by the side for their own turns, chatting idly among themselves with one eye on the two of them in the centre and the other on the pretty girls who had come to watch. After the previous day’s debacle down in town, he’d be damned if he’d let them stand around like gossiping old women. Better not leave the kid waiting to cause more mischief. “Alright, group practice, small bouts. I’ve got to see to other duties. Hal, you’re in charge. Dummies only. I’ll be back later, I expect everyone to still be here when I am. ” He turned to the steps, rolled his eyes skywards in a brief prayer for patience, slid his sword back into its sheath at his side and shouted, “Come on then, lad. Let’s see about those lessons.”

“That’s not very respectful of a Great Mage, you know,” the Kid shouted back, but he got up readily enough, meeting Felix at the edge of the practice ground and falling into step beside him as he headed for the armoury. “They all treat you in a very familiar manner here,” he added, frowning as Felix used the hem of his tunic to swipe at the light beading of sweat on his forehead, leaving a dark streak that would dry easily enough in the sun.

“I like it that way,” Felix said, sliding his sword back into its sheath at his side and starting to unbuckle his swordbelt. He turned right to cross the patch of sparse summer grass and ducked under the lintel into the cool shadow of thick stone walls, listening to the kid’s boots clatter across the stone behind him. “Here, take this and don’t drop it.” The Kid nearly fumbled the catch when he tossed the sword at him and pulled a sullen face, but he didn’t quite drop it. Felix paced over to the far side of the room where he kept his spare shirt and dragged the damp one off over his head, wiping himself down with it before he dumped it on the floor in a heap of crumpled cotton.

The Kid was just staring at him with raised eyebrows when he turned back around, leaning one hip against the doorframe with his sword tucked between his arm and his side and the belt looped over his forearm. “I didn’t think I was getting those sort of lessons,” he said, giving Felix an exaggerated once-over with a smirk on his face, lingering on the muscles of his chest and arms, scarless, defined lines shifting under his skin as he moved, the fine fuzz of dark hair.

“Grow up,” Felix said shortly, and turned to grab his fresh shirt from its peg, pulling it quickly over his head and tugging it down into place. “Sword please.”

“Here.” The Kid tossed it back to him underarmed, too short, and Felix had to lunge forward to grab it, sending a scowl at the teenager to no obvious effect. “Oops.”

“This gets damaged, I’ll beat you with it first and then make you repair it.” He moved to sit at the bench in the centre of the room, pulling out a box of supplies from underneath it and sorting through until he found what he wanted. “Now. I have a few ideas of what to do with you.” He’d stayed up late the night before, contemplating lessons as he stared at the ceiling, fingers linked loosely behind his head where it hollowed out his pillow.

“Do tell.”

“Less of the sarcasm, kid,” he said as he drew his sword and braced it between his knees, blade up, and poured some oil onto the cloth to start cleaning it.

“You’re only twenty-five.”

“That’s right,” Felix said, running the cloth down his sword, making sure to catch every streak of oil evenly so that it didn’t leave the metal smeared.

The Kid stepped closer up behind him to peer over his shoulder at the sword in his hands, then sat himself down beside Felix, casually straddling the bench and watching as he ran a hair against the edge to check its sharpness. “Then how can you call me ‘Kid’? You’re barely any older than I am.”

Normally it was quiet in the armoury, just him and the weapons, the chainmail hung upon mannequins against the wall gleaming dully in the sunlight coming in through the dusty windows. “You act like one.” He ran a hand over the leather binding of the hilt, checking it lay flush and tight from the pommel to the crossguard.

“I do not.”

“Then what do you call yesterday? Getting into a fight with people who are supposed to respect you? They’ve seen you rolling in dirt now, kid, they’ve bruised and beaten you.”

“They didn’t beat me,” the Kid said sullenly, kicking his heels against the floor, all long limbs and churlish expression. “I just chose not to use my magic on them, as it was such an unfair advantage. I could have won any time I wanted to.”

“Great Mages set an example,” Felix said as he took up the cloth again, rubbing more oil into the fuller where it tended to bead in the channel down the centre of the blade. Better it be oil than blood, he thought, and rubbed harder. “The King has many Mages, many good people. But he has only seven of us, and he needs us to do what he asks easily and without question. To do that, we need ordinary people to do what we ask of them just as easily, just as without question. We need their respect.

“I know the people here respect me, because I have made myself worthy of their respect. They treat me in a familiar manner because I allow it. I am the Master of Swords, whether they call me Felix or Your Grace. You - ” he paused, tossed the cloth back in the box and slid his sword home hard. It rang like a bell, the tip catching the metal end of the scabbard violently. “You are the boy whose horses they stole and who let them give him a black eye.”

“Fine, okay,” the Kid said, so quietly Felix almost didn’t hear it as he looked over his scabbard, already carefully oiled to keep the leather from cracking. “What would I have to do, to get that?”

Felix shrugged and threaded the scabbard back onto his belt. “Act like a Great Mage, instead of a spoilt brat,” he said as he buckled the belt back around his waist. “Have some respect for people. Take something seriously other than your own ego. Be worthy of it.”

“Or you could just teach me the sword so that I could beat everybody like you,” the Kid said, “Like you do.”

“Or I could just smack some sense into you with the back of my hand,” Felix said, and got up. “Today your lesson will be in the Keep.”

“Doing what?” the Kid asked, and when he stood Felix realised with some surprise that he wasn’t really that much taller than the lad, even if he was broader.

“You’ll see,” Felix said, and showed him the way into the Keep proper, putting a hand on the Kid’s head to push it down and keep him from cracking it on the lintel of the interior door, which had not been built so low but had become so over time, when the Master of Earth had remodelled the grounds a hundred years before.

The Mage’s practice room was located in the space between the foundations of the fort, where weight of earth and stone helped compress and contain it, far away from the populated areas that might otherwise have become caught in the backlash of any accidents. No doubt the Master of Earth had reinforced it with his own power back when he had built it - Felix wondered if Landon could sense magic around him, the thrum in the air or faint taste of tin in the back of his mouth that other Mages had described to him. His own powers lay in his skin and sinew, self-contained and unable to reach out and touch. His training had been the shortest of any Great Mage recorded; there was nothing to be trained.

The Kid looked up and down the bare, earthen room with a look of distaste on his face, eyebrows nearly disappearing into his hair. “Wow. Just when I thought this place couldn’t get any more like a peasant’s outhouse, you manage to outdo yourself. Did you hire someone to decorate, or did you pick the throws and cushions out yourself?”

“Nothing here to break,” Felix said, giving him a push so that he stumbled over the threshold and into the room. “Mages need somewhere to practice. We take on the town’s youth as well, if they start showing signs of magic. Nowhere else for them to go for training on the frontier. It’s a traditional part of the local lord’s responsibility.”

“What do you take in payment? Chickens?” Even Felix could see that the fine linen of the lad’s shirt and the intricate embroidery of his waistcoat was at odds with the plain dirt of the room, even if the walls and floor had been pressed smooth by generations of bodies treading its ground. “I don’t know what rubbish Nicholas was spouting about you not liking to talk. You seem quite happy lecturing me.”

“Maybe because you don’t seem to understand what it means to be what you are,” and before the kid could sputter Felix laid his hands on his slim shoulders and stared straight into his eyes, making his voice low and forceful enough not to be easily interrupted. “A Great Mage is no better than any common Mage. As strong as you are, that doesn’t make you important. What makes you important - makes us important - is what we do with that strength. People look up to us, because we represent something to them. So don’t go around putting on the airs and graces of a Duke without doing anything to earn it, because I will knock you on your ass before I let you claim the title of Great Mage if I don’t think you deserve it. It is an accident of birth, not a divine right.”

The Kid’s chin jerked up high, stung, and he glared at Felix, tense under his hands but not daring to knock them off after their last, brief, altercation. “I am a Great Mage,” he insisted, “just because I don’t pretend like I’m not and walk around dressed like a farmer like you do, trying to get everyone to ignore it and never doing anything with it - ”

“Enough,” Felix said, and gave the Kid just enough of a push to knock him back a couple of steps, fumbling for his feet and looking as though he wanted to hiss at Felix, teeth bared in what was not a smile. “Show me what you can do.”

The Kid’s eyes narrowed, spiteful, and everything changed.

There was no ground beneath his feet; water swept around him wildly, shockingly cold and spraying salt in his face with a sharp and bitter tang upon his tongue; there was no land, just the horizon, and a sucking feeling at his feet, threatening to tow him under even as his arms moved automatically to start beating against the tide, holding him up. And yet, he did not choke on the water that seemed to flood his mouth; his head was clear, his lungs drawing as deep as ever. “Is this the best you can do?” he asked, and they were standing across from one another in a field, the pale green sway of new corn surrounding them on all sides, brushing soft against his fingertips.

“What do you mean, is that the best I can do?” the Kid demanded, fuming, and waved his arms at their surroundings, the rush of the breeze scattering his hair across one shoulder and birds singing overhead. “You started swimming, I’d say it was pretty convincing!”

“Not drowning gave you away,” Felix said, shrugging. “This is better.”

“I can’t affect internal perceptions.” Their surroundings changed; a room on fire, flames licking at their clothes until smoke curled up from the fabric, smouldering. “You feel the heat, right? I could make you look burnt, but I can’t make you feel it. Most people don’t notice, they’re pretty easy to convince. If it looks right, they make up the feelings themselves.”

“I don’t burn,” Felix said, and watched in fascination as his smouldering sleeve fell to the floor, his skin beneath bubbling and blackening painlessly. It had been two decades since he’d been burnt.

“Oh, yeah.” The Kid rolled his eyes, even as his fingers began to curl into desiccated claws. “Tough crowd. How about this?” And they were back in the practice room, standing across from one another.

Felix glanced about, but everything seemed as it should be. “Nothing.”

“Look down.”

A quick glance downwards become a start of surprise; instead of his own rough homespun he was clothed in a noblewoman’s skirts and petticoats in a delicate shade of green, and long, artless curls fell forward into his eyes, brushing soft against his cheeks. “Who am I?” Felix asked, resisting the urge to run his hands down this strange body - a stranger’s body.

“Just some girl at Court,” the Kid said, a wry grin on his face. “Pretty good, huh? I can make you look like whoever I want. A little boy. Nicholas. Invisible, too, of course, but you already knew that.”

No doubt the King’s Spymasters had been salivating over this Kid for months. Felix could only imagine the kind of dangerous and downright traumatising situations they were going to dump him in once he was finished with his training.

“How many people at a time?” Felix asked.

“Can I disguise or can I fool? I’ve not found a limit yet,” and the Kid’s skinny chest puffed out with pride. Bloody stones. “Hello? Stop daydreaming. You’re supposed be inspiring me with your dedication and stoic manly pride in serving your country.”

Felix looked up from where he had been studying the hilt of his sword and met the Kid’s eyes, considering the coltish lines of his body under the fancy clothes. Still room to grow, he thought, and malleable. “I think we’ll add weapons study to your lessons after all,” he said mildly, and could see the surprise on the lad’s face, quickly followed by glee. “I certainly can’t teach you magic. Good manners we’ll see about.”

“You don’t do any magic, do you?” Green eyes narrowed, head tilted to one side, he looked back at Felix in much the same way as Felix had assessed him. “So what, you just have stone for skin?”

The bitter twist of his mouth surprised even Felix. “Not stone. Even stone gets chipped.”

The assignment he gave the Kid was straightforward enough. He was to disguise himself as a servant and try to avoid being caught out for the rest of the afternoon until dinner - about three hours. At that time Felix would ask if anyone had seen him, without giving away the ruse, and if they had, the Kid failed. If they hadn’t, he passed.

“What kind of lesson is that?” the Kid spat, hands moving to his hips and eyebrows flying to his hairline. “I’m not pretending to be a servant all day.”

“Illusion’s no good without acting,” Felix said, and gestured towards the door. “Now go on. I have preparations to make for the evening, no time for babysitting.”

“Preparations for what?”

“A funeral,” Felix said, and pushed his reluctant charge out into the Keep. His last sight of him as he rounded the corridor was a flash of brown overcoming the green of the Kid’s own clothes, and he wondered whose face had been appropriated this time.

It got the Kid out of his hair, at least, and gave him enough time to head back out to the training ground to supervise the rest of the session, watching the men practice their footwork back and forth across the sand, kicking up dust and grit into the dry, still air. “Quick feet are as important as quick hands,” he told them, and gave them an extra ten minutes for every time one of them looked down. “Your opponent isn’t going to be admiring the new ribbons on your shoes, so neither should you, Len,” even if it did look like he was conducting a dancing lesson out there. Then he really did need to get on, so Felix left his men groaning and rubbing sore muscles around the water butt to head back inside.

This time he was headed up instead of down; Nicholas had insisted he be based in the Keep proper, rather than in one of the garrison’s outbuildings, and so instead of abutting the training ground where he spent a good proportion of his day he had to take the long route around to the West Gate, past soldiers and horsemen and the heat and noise of the smithies, then through that long, curved archway with its three iron-bound gates set into the ten-feet-thick stone walls before he could enter the outer ring of the Fortress, trot up two flights of thick-cut stone stairs and along the Painted Gallery to reach his office, past the neutral faces of past Lords and Ladies of the Keep in their martial finery on the right and the long, detailed mural to his left-hand side. It was so lifelike the wall might as well not be there, and he looking out upon the landscape with his own eyes; the hills and fields replicated directly onto the wall, each copse and dip carefully placed, and above them all, dark and dominating an otherwise pastoral scene, the cliffs, tall and jagged against the blue of the painted sky. It had amazed him more when he had first seen it than it did now, all too familiar; Felix passed it by with scarcely a glance, and entered the short corridor at the opposite end of the Keep which, though plain and unlovely, nonetheless took him to the room he had been given for an office.

As with everything Nicholas did, it was too generous for his needs. A desk and a place to store papers was all he had asked for, and this had been provided; a desk of some richly dark and expensive wood, with gilded drawer handles and a carved inkwell of etched glass and silver fitted into its surface, and one wall entirely laid out with shelving in the same kind of wood, perhaps twelve feet long and filling the space from floor to ceiling. His papers took up perhaps the first two feet of two shelves. Felix had considered offering the space to someone else who might need so much room, but doubted anyone else would wish to trek all the way over to this side of the Keep either. The one benefit of its remote location was that it was rare for him to be bothered when there - either people could not find it or else did not need him badly enough to face the walk.

Today there were two hefty saddlebags sitting atop his desk, carefully leant up against one another so that they didn’t fall over. The fine grain of the dark-stained leather and the neat, invisible stitching that held them together told their own story as to their owner. He walked over to the desk and checked, but there was no note, and his mouth twisted wryly. Evidently whatever ‘kind soul’ had seen fit to return them had not wished to be recognised for their good deed.

Ah, well. They were back, at least. Running his fingers down the front until he found the tie, he pulled back the flap to at least check everything was as it should be, and was hit with a stench so foul he staggered backwards retching, a hand clapped firmly across his nose and mouth and a rank taste like a film across his tongue and the back of his throat. “Blood and corruption,” he muttered, scraping his tongue against his teeth and spitting on the stone floor, anything to get rid of that damn flavour. What in Va’anya’s name was the Kid keeping in there? Walking back toward the desk only brought him back into the invisible cloud of the stink, and those saddlebags must have been damn fine to keep such a smell in check. He hooked a finger into the lip of the bag and pulled it further open to peer inside, seeing only linen shirts and a shaving kit in a tight traveller’s roll, a few coins tossed in loose, a folded map, and a couple of crumpled-looking letters, nothing that could produce anything like what he was smelling.

Of course, he had forgotten to consider whose saddlebags they were.

“The Kid,” he muttered, and once he had realised what must be going on the smell seemed to fade a little - still present, still unpleasant, but easier to ignore. An illusion, then, and enough to put off most opportunists. He wondered if it was a constant or if it had only been put in place since the bags had gone wandering. He looked in again, pushed the shirts out of the way to see if there was anything hidden beneath them, but found only waistcoats. Poor horse, to be required to carry the entire wardrobe of so vain a lad. Laying things back in place, his fingers found the letters, and before he put them back as they had been he glanced long enough at the seal to recognise it with a jolt of surprise, eyebrows flying upward as he pulled it entirely out and into the light.

Three blossoms on a shield with a verdant banner, pressed firmly into the dark green wax; he ran his thumb across the embossed surface, felt its hollows ripple in the hardened seal. Valere’s mark. He turned the letter over and was not surprised to see his own name in her neat, sweeping hand. After all, who else did she know here to send a letter to?

Before he could think better of it he had worked the wax loose from the paper and dragged the seal into an unidentifiable smear, unfolding the rustling paper and shuffling the pages to count them. Four. With a sigh, Felix walked round the desk to drop into his chair, propping his feet up on the corner of the desk and pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers, hard. Best to read it, though he suspected he knew the contents.

Valere hoped he was well. She hoped he spent time with companions other than his sword. A long, rambling page of court gossip which he skimmed without absorbing - likely the Kid would be more interested than he. She hoped he was not still offended with her over their last conversation; she had not meant to anger him, only to be certain that he knew of her feelings, as he was difficult to read at times. She had the utmost regard for him and hoped they might be friends again.

She hoped life was not too difficult for him out in the borderlands in such rough surroundings, and that he had not had to fight. She worried for his safety and happiness in such a place, and wondered that a Great Mage might be sent so far away from the Capital and the King. Surely he could be of better use in Valindesea? Surely the Master of Bones was able to guard the pass effectively with his magic without needing Felix’s strength of arms?

She hoped he would write to her and awaited his letter. His company was sorely missed, and not just by Valere. Yours affectionately, etc etc.

Well. Felix shook his head, letting the letter drop into his lap. The sigh came out in a rush, ruffled the pages and nearly sent them drifting serenely onto the floor. What a long letter to convey so simple a message - that she had not understood, or had not accepted, his meaning when last they spoke. That she still hoped, despite his demurral. He did not even know why she did.

Surely she had to know that he was, save for an accident of providence, the son of a soldier, and little more than a soldier himself, despite his fancy title? That he might read like a gentleman, and might speak the language, but had mud on his boots nonetheless? “Blood and corruption,” he muttered to himself, slouching lower in his chair, and folded the letter carefully, tucking it away into the inside pocket of his jerkin and trying not to crumple it. The heavy suede was soft under the flat of his palm when he smoothed it down over the letter, almost hiding the feel of the thick, stiff paper. Even the border, it seemed, was not far enough away.

He was taking a moment to feel sorry for himself and getting quite comfortable in his frustration when the door exploded inwards with a loud bang, as though kicked by a horse; it smashed into the wall and bounced off hard enough to nearly hit Landon in the face as he leapt into the room shouting “Aha! I have you now, brigand! Oh. Felix.” The Kid skidded to a halt in front of the desk when he realised who it was he had ‘discovered’, but when his eyes settled on the saddlebags where they sat on the desk, one quite obviously opened, it seemed to re-enrage him, and he glared, face a violent red as he jabbed a stiff finger toward Felix. “You were the thief all along! Well, prepare to meet divine retribution!”

He looked more like an irritated cat than divine retribution, puffing up its fur to look bigger than it was. With, he would admit, a concentration of willpower Felix ignored the creeping sensation of insect legs in places he would rather they not go and, in anticipation of further misuse of power, said, “Told you they’d get back to you today. Your horses are in the stables, unless I miss my guess.”

“Hidden where I would never think to look!” The Kid spun on his heel to look around the room, spine taut as a bowstring and long arms flailing as though he didn’t know what to do with them. “To fund this lavish room! Felix, you scoundrel, stealing from a child!”

“You’re seventeen.”

“I’m still so young and unwise in the ways of the world! And yet you took advantage of me - ” the Kid turned back around, eyes wide and mournful now, then lighting once again on his open bags. “And, apparently, helped yourself to my belongings! What, my horses not enough, you had to steal the shirt from my back?”

“From your bag, perhaps. If they weren’t sized for little girls.”

“What did you say?” the Kid shrieked, and started tearing at his own hair, in a right frenzy now. Felix rather suspected he was enjoying his own dramatics. “What? Did I - insults, now? To add to injury? I thought better of you, but I see now you are no gentleman at all, just a common looter!”

This echoed a little too closely Felix’s own thoughts before Landon’s unexpected entrance, and so instead of winding the Kid up further he said, “I might ask you why you did not tell me you had a letter for me in these bags.”

That seemed, at least, to stop the ranting in full flow, enough for Landon to say “Well if they were stolen, how could I have given it to you anyway? And if they were stolen by you, then you got your stinking letter, so it’s not like I had a chance to withhold it. Have you got something going with Valere de Monnat? Because I hear she’s been pining. Pining like a lumberjack.”

“Why are you here instead of doing as I asked?” Felix swung his legs down from his desktop and settled his feet firmly down on the floor, hands braced on his thighs, the line of his mouth tight as he glanced down at the papers waiting for his attention. “I specifically said I didn’t want to hear a peep of you until dinner.”

“I sensed my illusion getting set off.” Landon ducked around the desk, bending over to meet Felix’s eyes with his fox-slanted green ones, arms crossed in the small of his back. “Well, it was working all the time, of course, but I felt it catch. So naturally I came running to apprehend the villain at his own game while he was still paralysed from the stench. Also, what I was doing was really gross.”

The kid’s hair was hanging at an odd angle when he tilted over like that, blood rushing into his face and turning him purple. “Gross?” Felix raised an eyebrow and waited.
“A very rude man caught me wandering around - looking very inconspicuous and not at all notable, I’ll have you know! - and he made me scrub floors! On my knees! With my hands!”
Felix felt his mouth start to twitch and immediately suppressed it. “No brush?”

“Of course I had a brush, Felix, don’t be stupid. You are missing the point on purpose. He snatched me from the halls, possibly having a legitimate errand to run, possibly on a mission of life-and-death, and he made me scrub floors! And he stood over me and watched me do it and when I was done he said I’d done it so badly that I’d have to do it again! And that was when I sensed your illicit snoopery and faked a seizure and ran away.”

“You. Faked a seizure.” Somehow his hand had reached his nose and was pinching the bridge of it hard enough to feel, eyes closed in disbelief. This kid. Va’anya’s aching heart, Felix thought, and tried not to sigh. “You failed in your task, lad. You were supposed to go unnoticed. Instead you made a big scene and now that man will remember you and talk about it. I’m disappointed.”

When he looked up Landon was looking down at his boots, turning them this way and that, looking for scuffs and clearly not listening at all, hair hanging down covering his expression, shoulders stiff. Felix snorted and leant back in his chair, shaking his head. “I need to sort things out for this evening. You go do whatever it is you like to do. Tomorrow, when Nicholas releases you, come let me know. Now off with you.”

The Kid seemed like he might say something, nearly raised his eyes to at least look Felix in the face, but then he turned slowly and fair to dragged himself out the door, closing it behind him with a sullen bang. Somehow, Felix found he had preferred the method of his entrance than this surly exit. Reminded him of a hurricane - stormed in and breezed out. Tempestuous, that was the word.

He sighed, and turned his mind to assigning some pallbearers.